Las Vegas tries a new plan to combat slumping tourism

A collection of Las Vegas sites, ranging from hotels and bars to gaming floors, has recently undertaken a bold new strategy for luring back international tourists. The plan, called Vegas At Par, offers to accept foreign currency directly from travelers abroad at a rate that’s equal to the U.S. dollar, regardless of what the exchange rates are.

For Canadian travelers considering a trip to the desert, that could add up to serious savings — with a few caveats of course.

The Vegas At Par program, new for 2026, is available to Canadian tourists only. Per Toronto’s CityNews, Canadians are the largest group of international visitors to Las Vegas, and with the city’s tourism industry slumping overall, there have been increased efforts to lure them back to Nevada with a combination of good deals, good-natured hockey rivalries and good old-fashioned pleading.

“We rely, in part, on Canadian tourism,” Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley said in a news conference last year. “We love the Canadians, and we want them to come back and enjoy Las Vegas and everything that we have to offer. And so as the mayor of Las Vegas, I’m telling everybody in Canada: Please come. We love you, we need you, and we miss you.”

The Vegas At Par program currently covers Circa Resort & Casino, the D Las Vegas, and Golden Gate Hotel & Casino, all located several miles away from the Strip in the busy downtown Las Vegas area along Fremont Street. The initiative includes at-par rates for hotel rooms at all three properties, as well as at-par rates at certain bars like D Las Vegas’ BarCanada sports bar.

Current exchange rates put the Canadian dollar at about 73 cents compared with the American dollar; pulling that amount up to even offers significantly more buying potential for Canadian travelers. A $200 hotel room would otherwise cost a Canadian traveler about 272 Canadian dollars, so the Vegas At Par program lops off more than CA$72 from the price. Put another way, spending the same CA$200 without an at-par exchange rate would result in only about $146 in buying power in Las Vegas, not $200.

Gamblers who load CA$500 onto gaming cards (normally a roughly $366 value) will get $500 in promotional slot game play to use during their stay. Obviously, it pays to read the full list of rules and exclusions, which can be found on the Circa Las Vegas website.

All of the downtown Las Vegas properties participating in Vegas At Par are jointly owned by Derek Stevens, who said in a March 3 video on X that “the turnout’s been terrific” for the program already. “Fifteen thousand people have come through our properties in the first 30 days” from the program, he added.

“We’re missing our Canadian friends and tourists to Las Vegas,” Stevens also said in the video. Indeed, tourism overall is down in Sin City, with Harry Reid International Airport posting months of air traffic decline dating back to last year. The sharp decrease in Canadian spending hasn’t just hurt Las Vegas, either; tariffs and anti-Canadian rhetoric from the Trump administration have negatively affected everything from restaurants in Palm Springs to Napa Valley’s wine industry.

Vegas At Par began Feb. 6 and is slated to run through Aug. 31, 2026.